In the "Dude" movie, Sparks plays an alien whose followers pay respect by making a "Z" with their hands -- left thumb down, fingers pointing left; and right thumb up, fingers right.

Sparks grew up in Chicago, but his girlfriend is a Pirates and Steelers fan and her family is from Pittsburgh. He first noticed the local phenomenon of the "Z" sign online.

"One of the Twitter guys is @PiratesZoltan, and he's got a different picture of a different player doing it all the time. I thought it was a joke at first, like, 'That's not happening -- really?' And then it changed all the time, and I was like, 'This is impressive.' At this point, this is so much fun," Sparks said. "My girlfriend's family had the T-shirts when they came to the house to go with us to the game today -- like, already. They weren't like, 'Oh, we're going with you, they'll probably have extras because it's you.' They'd already had them for a while. They've laundered them. You know what I mean? Like, they've worn them before. How do you wrap your head around that?"

Although Sparks' pitch bounced at home plate, the power of the "Z" that he brought to the park was clearly too much for the Chicago Cubs to handle.

The Pirates won 3-2 and ended a two-game losing streak.

Show us how you flash the "Z" for the Bucs! Email photos to ulocal@wtae.com or upload them on our u local page.